homepage posts

Exciting news! The AOL Homepage for Heroes microsite is being featured in the daily web design galleries of Awwwards.com, a site that recognizes and promotes the talent and effort of the best developers, designers and web agencies in the world, and theFWA.com, a site that highlights inspirational portals with industry recognition and awards.

Homepage for Heroes is AOL's yearlong project to recognize, honor and support our troops. On May 18^th, 3,000 AOLers got together for a day of service to celebrate our company's birthday - Monster Help Day. We assembled care packages for Operation Gratitude to be sent to troops overseas. In addition to sending snacks, toiletries and entertainment items, we wanted to give our users a chance to get involved by creating personalized letters of support and gratitude from compassionate Americans. We've taken our efforts one step further with the microsite, which turns a potential logistical nightmare into a fun, interactive and efficient way to collect letters. Try out the website for yourself and see how easy it is to send personalized letters to deployed troops and veterans!

Help us spread the word and vote for AOL's Homepage for Heroes on Awwwards.com and theFWA.com.

Today we are pleased to announce the launch of Homepage for Heroes, a new initiative that brings together the best of AOL to recognize, honor and support those that dedicate their lives to protecting and bettering ours. As May is National Military Appreciation Month, what better way to kick off this initiative than to honor the men and women who bravely serve in our military?

Through June, AOL is partnering with the USO® to create connections for U.S. military troops deployed across the world. Every time a user comes to aol.com/heroes and sets AOL as their homepage, AOL will donate 10 minutes of talk-time on their behalf. This donation will help support Operation Phone Home, a USO® program that provides free calls, high-speed Internet bandwidth and wireless access to troops in USO® Centers around the world.

And we're not stopping there. AOL will continue to honor our military service members throughout the year, by creating support and opportunity for our troops and their families:

• This month, AOL employees will be creating 30,000 care packages as part of our annual Monster Help Day. These care packages will be sent to active service members overseas, returning wounded military personnel, as well as military spouses and children right here at home. Starting July 4^th, AOL users will have the opportunity to personalize these care packages, by sending their own letters of thanks and support, courtesy of the non-profit Operation Gratitude.
• Later on in the year, we'll look to raise awareness and provide support for one of the biggest challenges our troops face when returning home: re-entering the workforce. To do this, we'll leverage one of our greatest assets: our content creators. AOL will call upon experts in every field (career management, media, fashion and decorated veterans) to compile a dream team of advisors who will help military families. We'll feature one complete "career makeover" for a veteran and their family each week.

As a child in the early 1970s, I remember my Mom and Dad each wearing bracelets that contained the name, rank, service branch, country and date of loss of an American prisoner of war or service member who had gone missing in action. It was their way to show support for those brave service members who had lost their connection to both their family and their country. Years later my mother received a letter from her POW, who had returned home. The letter contained a personal thank you note, along with a picture of him, his wife and children. The letter brought home for me the fact that these were real people, with real lives and real families, making very real sacrifices for our country. Sadly, my father's POW/MIA never returned home to his family.

At AOL, it is our goal to connect our audience to the causes that they care about, and to give them the tools they need to make a difference. Homepage for Heroes is the latest installment of our ongoing commitment to that goal.

Spring has officially sprung! In celebration of the first day of the season, debut AOL Artist Amy Jean Porter has painted two beautiful canvases for the AOL visual brand identity, "Phlox" and "Peonies."

Amy is an illustrator, painter, and expert in depicting various animal species. Her recent book, Of Lamb, was featured in Vanity Fair's November 2011 issue as one of the "Best Books of 2011." Her work for AOL can now be found on AOL.com as one of the many options for consumers to customize their homepage, and on AOLArtists.com.

AOL is supporting the artistic community by actively commissioning artists from around the world to create the visual identity behind our brand. We are showcasing their work globally and our artist community is growing daily as we continue to discover talented individuals to work with in the future. We launched the AOL Artists site in May 2010 to showcase the incredible talent that is behind our brand and have since worked with 92 artists and commissioned 229 pieces of art as canvases to be featured as part of our brand identity. With AOL Artists, we are empowering artists, creativity and innovation.

The canvas "Peonies" is also now available as a Twibbon! To explore all of the AOL Artists' work, visit AOLArtists.com or follow us on Twitter at @aolartists.

This is the second post in our series profiling incredible women at AOL in honor of "Women's History Month."

An AOLer for over fifteen years, Christa Zambardino, VP of Sales for AOL homepages, has seen it all. Over her long career at AOL, Christa has witnessed first-hand the evolution of AOL into a company and brand, but also the progression of the industry as a whole.

We sat down with Christa to discuss a wide variety of topics including advertising trends, the importance of volunteerism and her thoughts on what differentiates the AOL homepage from its competitors. "For our users, it all starts here. Our homepage is really America's homepage. By integrating our unique canvases, our video assets like the 'You've Got...' series and featuring heart-warming stories, the homepage has a more personal feel that users identify with and want to wake up to in the morning and end their days with in the evening."

When Christa came aboard AOL there was no sales strategy for the homepage and she quickly identified that a category focus was needed. By working with marketing, her team created sales materials and messaging that catered to brands in all industries.

Combined with continuing technological advancements and a focused editorial strategy, the AOL homepage has seen huge growth in revenue, and a substantial increase in video views and video content displayed since 2010.¹ Providing personalization for users with different tactics like an emphasis on local offerings has also led to growth. "We introduced the local page, which uses your zip code to pull relevant information, whether its news from your local Patch town, directions for your neighborhood from MapQuest or movie times and listings from Moviefone, we use geo-targeted data to make our users' lives easier."

Discussing advertising trends that will impact 2012, Christa cites the importance of mobile and video. "We're working with our mobile team to take advantage of these added advertising opportunities. Over the next quarter we will continue to integrate rich media into our mobile offerings and possibly incorporate targeting capabilities to create a more complete experience."

One of the things that sets Christa apart is her commitment to helping others. At AOL, "We are in the business of helping people. Period" and Christa lives this value every single day. After volunteering in 2009 at the Ronald McDonald House New York during AOL's day of service, Monster Help Day, Christa made a personal connection to the house and wanted to look for new ways to continue to support the organization. After spending more time at the house, it was clear to Christa that they needed a new media room. Suggesting demolishing the house's dated computer room and starting fresh, Christa presented her proposal to the executive team and immediately received support for her project, engaging 20 different departments from designers to engineers to assist her along the way.

One year later, AOLers celebrated the room's completion with a ribbon-cutting ceremony with patients, their families and Kevin Jonas. The new AOL Media Room now includes brand new computers and digital equipment set up for one-on-one tutoring, and group learning scenarios for children in treatment, as well as their siblings staying at the House. The house was so thankful to Christa for all of her hard work that they recently asked to join the house's board of associates.

This year, in an effort to raise money for her NY marathon run, Christa created an AOL team that will run under the Ronald McDonald House name. All donations will go toward enhancing the house's music room, on behalf of Rory Wheeler, Christa's AOL colleague and marathon runner, who passed away from cancer late last year.

Christa's amazing accomplishments have not gone unnoticed at AOL. At this year's sales conference, Christa was recognized in front of all of her peers when she was honored with the Rory Wheeler Courage Award for her tireless philanthropic work both professionally and personally. "Cancer has been such a big part of my life, and I love showing people that giving back is an easy thing to do and does not take a lot of time. Being acknowledged in front of my peers and the whole company was incredible. I was so honored and proud to be part of AOL."

Source: AOL Internal Data

Christa Zambardino Talks AOL.com, America's Homepage and Giving Back aol.it/zQ4pnO

- AOL PR (@AOLPR) March 14, 2012